"There's a local soft rock station in Boston called Magic 106.7 so it was a play on that. One and Zero is of course computer binary code... tricks are about manipulation... point never is about infinity...so those are the elements. But here's where it gets annoying... when I spelled it out, it looked like this mystical Japanese hi fi corporation name, and I started pronouncing it "On-eeyo-tricks." That particular iteration stuck with me, but its somewhat contentious because people say it all kinds of different ways and in a democracy, the people should have the final say, right? So I want to go on the record now and say that any way you want to pronounce it is totally legit. I recommend "OPN" because its easy and has an NIN vibe to it."

when i was confused about the whole pronunciation lark.

however you choose to say it, he was pretty good here in manchester although it did make me want to sleep a bit.

i guess the half-asleep feeling is sorta the point with OPN, it's a shame David Keenan took his blog down as there was a really good email interview on there about everything. i find bits and pieces of OPN come back to me when i'm just waking up/going to bed/in the shower/having a massive coffee comedown and i have no problem with that

I've got to be in the mood for his stuff though and sometimes I wish he'd switch it up a little, a lot of his tracks don't progress very much and come off a little simplistic. But when he's on point its really nice.

Judging by the first couple of listens I've given it, it's the best thing he's done yet.

But yeah, I know what you mean, I'm down with simplistic ambience quite a lot though so it kinda works, especially for this time of year. Emeralds, Stars of the Lid, Loscil, Oneohtrix, Sun Araw all really good summertime dozing music...

Going to echo many of the sentiments here about the new Oneohtrix album (always said it One-oh-tricks). A definite progression as well as forays into new territories. Interesting to see him playing with vocals too this time round.

I was djing above the gig at the Freebutt in Brighton. OPN played a pretty short set - 30 minutes I think, I nearly missed it! - The sound was a lot harsher than I was expecting, but that may have been the pa/mix, it might not always be like that. I was expecting a really deep soft-edged sound like the records but it was proper in yr face, and there was an actual beat at one point. It was good.

OPN is already that dream state in sound isn't it? (this is why I do not understand the hate for the phrase Hypnagogic Pop - how much more aptly do you want it described?!)..anyway...I went to see Wolf Eyes the other night and put Rifts on to go to sleep to afterwards then half-woke when Emil Cioran came on (because that's a little fierce too, must have given m,e a bit of a jolt) drifting in and out of a weird dreamstate combination of Nate Young screeching and OPN bliss bubbling around me - pinned to the bed by REM paralysis, totally horrified and euphoric all at the same time.

I love the associations with hypnagogia and am quite interested in lucid dreaming so it works for me. I get hypnagogic paralysis most nights before I sleep, and as en experience it's both terrifying and beautiful at the same time, which definitely works with this kinda music.

It's just the reductiveness of any genre tagging, and the lumping a whole load of people together into a 'scene' that doesn't really exist. But yes, both Emeralds and OPN are the definition of halfway-dreamstate music, and interestingly Mount Kimbie's new album really touches on that as well.

I really like the two eps a lot of the sounds on those were definitely edging towards the spacial/spatial realm of sound experience.

I woke up to some Pocahaunted once and have never been so scared. That was especially weird that one because it lasted so long before I had any idea of what was going on.

Loads of bands around at the moment are recreating my own personal mental experiences, and how I project my listening onto music - that feedback loop of hearing > subjective listening > interpretation > anticipated hearing. So much of this music around now, across a few geners, from Yoga to OPN, Mater Suspiria Vision to Gr†LLGR†LL... loads of shades of tones and dynamics that seems to be exactly how I already hear the world. In that respect, it all deserves to be tagged under the same genre as far as I'm concerned.

Last year and so far this year have seen this amazing diversity of artists making stuff that seems to offer lots of different interpretations of exactly what I like in music. Albums from Actress, OPN, Emeralds, FlyLo, Peverelist, Shackleton, Ariel Pink, Ben Frost, Loscil, FaltyDL, Mount Kimbie, 10-20... (and that's offhand); then smaller releases from loads of excellent bass producers, James Blake's hazy soul music, a new collaboration between Billy Love and Theo Parrish that makes me want to melt... etc etc.

As brightonb said a little further down, I think 2010 may be edging towards my all time favourite year for music (at least, while I've been alive/into music).

I'm not down with buying stuff digitally unless it's a dance 12" that I want but know I can't afford it on vinyl. I'd rather give the £1.50 or thereabouts to a small label than just download it illegally. If it's not something I know I'm desperately gonna want on wax I always feel the need to save the money for stuff I know I want/impulse buys.

really enjoyed it and am looking forward to the new album. I asked him what it was like touring in europe and he said that it is good to get away from brookyln as he lives in a shitty apartment in an area with a really high crime rate. he also said that about 5 people come to his shows in brooklyn!!!!! seems he has much more of a following over here...

It's cavernously deep, it's kinda like he's carved out a huge space beneath your feet. Listening to it reminds me of the feeling you might have if you were scuba diving in the open ocean, suspended in blue space with an infinite void just beneath you. Terrifying - in the sense that it makes you feel dwarfed by its sheer size and power - but also beautiful, and strangely calming.

this is how roll. This plus bass. I don't do regular nights any more, only special one-offs (although the more I do the more tempted I am to get back into it). I DJd the OPN gig the other week, played a lot of this kind of stuff - not actually Lopatin's own records, that's a bit creepy.

I did play some dinosaur field recordings though. He loved it. Who wouldn't?

His set was really short, but it was probably closer to 30 minutes. I enjoyed it a lot, there was a lot going on in the sound, triggering loads of layers but I thought the sound was a bit harsh, but that might have been the venue. People who saw him elsewhere round the UK said it was soft and bubbly which it wasn't in Brighton. At least it stopped it sounding new-agey in any way! That's the line across which this stuff is in danger of crossing isn't it.

she just laughed at it....then after 4 more tracks she was totally into it saying it was waaay more that it first appeared. Although I think that's partly because Rifts gets much deeper and denser the further in you go.

Before I forget, I meant to say to you the other day that I REALLY enjoyed your last mix, the chillwavey one. It seems to be the tip of an iceberg I'm going to have to somehow find the time to explore...

thanks Rory, glad you got a lot out of it. It will be interesting to see where bands can take that sound, it seems like such a finite concept. Those bands are all over this summer's festivals, so I guess taking the bedroom studio onstage is the answer.

knows how to plug in jack leads to effects pedals! When we were listening to Oneohtrix the other day; a massive crazy fx bit kicked in and he started twisting his fingers twiddling pedal knobs. 20 months old. I'm not sure what I've started.

when it comes to electronic music are Sub Rosa's Anthologies of Noise and Electronic music.
More specifically in relation to OPN there are the obvious artists like Eno and La Monte Young. First of all then, there is Harold Budd, who worked closely with Eno. I've only ever heard are Madrigals of the Rose Angels (1972) and The Plateaux of Mirror (1980? collaboration with Eno). The reason I think Budd is a more appropriate reference for current 'ambient' music is because he was looking for the evil in music, instead of the more meditative style of 'Eno ambient'.
Two other interesting artists are Gordon Mumma and Robert Ashley. For Mumma listen to Hornpipe (1967), where he plays the waldhorn and the french horn of which he adapted the sound through this resonance box he was wearing. It's not a piece of music that is much like OPN but the sustained, and more importantly, prolonged notes have led to ambient music. Listen to it on ubuweb: http://www.ubu.com/sound/mumma.htmlRobert Ashley then, wrote a piece in the late 1970s called Automatic Writing. Coming out around the same time as Budd's and Eno's early work, and due to it's quiet sound, this has been more related to ambient music. Ubu also has some samples of Ashley's music: http://www.ubu.com/sound/ashley.html

it starts in 72! and ends in the 80s! most german experimental bands grew pretty stale by 75 (with some notable exceptions) and a lot of the pre-72 stuff is brilliant. what in god's name were they thinking?

Now for a lengthy ramble that you should probably ignore: Most Kraut bands were best in their earlier years, I think. Soul jazz included a lot of good bands, but they seem to be past their peak in a lot of them (the Can selections, for example are pretty worthless). Pre-72, bands like Amon Duul, Amon Duul 2, Ash Ra Tempel, Can, Guru Guru, Kraftwerk, Cluster, Tangerine Dream, etc all released killer albums, possibly their best stuff. It seems unnecessarily constricting to limit the choices to after 72. and let's face it, after 75 no Kraut band was making their best music. Popol Vuh are probably the best exception, every album by them is incredible. Klaus Schulze released some pretty good stuff after. Tangerine Dream, I don't really care about them post-Rubycon. Cluster/Harmonia and Eno are still pretty good, but damn their forst two albums are better in my book (less... delicate... Im Suden offa the second one is absolutely brilliant, my favourite track by them). La Dusseldorf are SHIT. I prefer Kraftwerk before they found their 'classic' sound. Neu, Faust, Ash Ra Tempel, Guru Guru, Amon Duuls, Agitation Free, Cosmic Jokers (inc. the Waltar Wegmuller and the shitty Sergius Golowin albums), Can etc all either broke up or were well past their peak by 75. THere are probably loads of exceptions I haven't heard of course, and bands I have forgotten about, but you get the idea......hopefully

I assume these OPN and Emeralds are mainly into the electronic side of Kraut music rather than the more rock side?

Oxygene by Jean Michel Jarre is worth listening to if French counts as German. Despite seemingly everyone in the world having it in the 1970s (my dad had a reel to reel copy I used to listen to when I was little.

I'm sure there is a lot of great stuff in the late 70s and 80s, I just haven't heard them... I have a couple of Krautrock and Kosmische encyclopedias, and there is so much stuff in them that sounds fucking great.. here's an online version of one of them: http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/ultimathule/krautrockers.htmlits incomplete, and not really especially fun to read (even more so online, I would imagine), but give it a look anyway

a lot of these bands changed a lot over the years, and you can check out the stuff you are more interested in...but here's what I would say...

all of the early Tangerine Dream stuff is great, I think. they started off as a kinda psychedelic cosmic rock band. both Conrad Schnitzler and Klaus Schulze are on the first album. all of are really good actually - the encyclopedia can describe them in more detail, they changed quite a bit over the years... - but I would recommend pretty much any of the following: Electronic Meditation, Atem, Alpha Centuri, Zeit (their earliest w/out any rock elements, I think), Phaedra (their first proper electronic album), Rubycon...

definitely get Cyborg. Gilles Zeitschiff is a Cosmic Jokers album. they were a loose super group who had members of Wallenstein (they are pretty legendary, I don't know much about them... I think they are fairly proggy...), Witthuser and Westrupp (cosmic folk shit...), and Ash Ra Temple (Gottsching and Schulze at some points I think). definitely worth a look. I have never heard Between, but they sound pretty interesting.

Ash Ra Temple were great, but their first two albums (Ash Ra Temple and Schwingungen) are definitely the best. I'm not hugely sure about the late 70s stuff, though.

About £25 quid or thereabouts on ebay and a fair bit more on discogs. Not absolutely sure about that price. Their first LP 'Einstieg' is available on vinyl on Juno for a reasonable sum but I think it's got a fairly different sound from what I heard on spotify.

That interest in the Emeralds/ Oneohtrix camp is reaching a peak at the moment with 2 (arguable) career peak albums? Seems like they're getting alot of great reviews. Anyway, this compilation has just appeared in my inbox.....

I've only heard the first track, Channel Ten, but it sounded like the lovley but fairly standard gentle ambient-electronica stuff they've been doing for years. I suppose 14tracks are saying because it's kind of pastoral and uses fields recordings, it fits into this mould, but then that could be for loads of stuff. Idk, I'll wait 'til I've heard the whole album.
I could more easily see more comparison with people operating around the edges of hip-hop like Baths and Dem Hunger though.

It's fantastic to see them getting that level of recognition. I guess they'll still remain largely a cult concern, but if they also draw attention to other people working in similar regions I spose that can be nothing but a good thing.

I really like Boomkat's 14 Tracks selections, they're a great and cheap way to start getting into an artist/genre. That one looks alright, though as with all of this stuff, there's so much of it that's only available on limited vinyl/CDR/cassettes that you can never tell how good a set you're getting.

I do feel that people like Sun Araw, Skaters, Pocahaunted et al are kinda approaching it from a subtly different angle than Emeralds and Oneohtrix as well. I think I've barely touched the surface of all of their MASSIVE back catalogues as well, such is the challenge of keeping track of such stupidly prolific musicians.

I'm planning on tracking down Last American Hero/ Clear/ Grippers Nother Onesers LPs and thats about it. There are some great Pocahaunted LPs i'd love to get my hands on but rare as hell (reissues please!). At the moment I'm happy with picking up past Emeralds-related releases on discogs as long as the price is right. All these artists together though is a bit of a bottomless pit. Pick your allegiances or pick bankruptcy.

I'm down with Emeralds (want to get all their past releases, at least the ones I can actually afford/the albums), Oneohtrix projects and pretty much the same Ferraro records as you. The Grippers Nother Onesers stuff sounds great, was listening to some of it yesterday. Other than that, I'm pretty much just following a trail of records I like the sound of.

Interesting to hear the contemporary stuff he listens to which is much more 80s retro-pop than Oneohtrix but I think his Games project is probably more in line with his listening tastes, if that interview is the evidence to go by.

He's an american jazz trumpeteer and does all sorts of electronic stuff as well - he did an album with Brian Eno in the 70s which the track you linked is on the 'sequel' to, he's on Jan Bang's new album, and his own record from last year Last Night the Moon Came Dropping It's Clothes in the Street is really great.

I read an interview with Matmos when they were saying how much they love Fourth World, Vol. 1 so I maybe he has some kind of hold over the imagination of us electronic musicians.

I don't think I like it as much as Rifts though. Returnal is more concise, which is cool, but it was the complete sensory overload of Rifts that got me into OPN. It's like Can going from Tago Mago to Ege Bamyasi, it's the focused, concentrated version but Tago Mago was such a glorious clusterfuck you know? And I think that's an underrated album quality. Returnal is still better than 99.9% of what has been/will be released this year and there are very few people on Daniel Lopatin's level (Emeralds up to bat, Ben Frost on deck, Tim Hecker=the official). My two cents before the thread abandons the original topic and turns into a huge obscure digression.

The second track on 'Scenes with Curved Objects' with Adagio in G Minor (that music from Elephant Man and Platoon) is very much like The Caretaker's material. In the best way. So glad they've done this as discogs sellers charge a nightmare amount for these cassettes.

seems a odd thing to get excited about, but i genuinely think it's amazing. really haunting, which i guess will be amplified by watching it at the arnolfini where you're about a mile away from the screen...

The Antony track is absolutely gorgeous on vinyl, but the Fennesz one's incredible - it mixes both version together, and the piano from Antony's version clashes with the drone from the original, in a massive ocean of Fennesz feedback. And Daniel's vocoder singing occasionally appears alongside Antony's voice. Mmmmmmm